I would prefer that only individuals be allowed to donate their own money. Seems to me everyone's rights are still preserved. Organizations especially corporations are hierarchical and consequently, members do not have equal say about how funds are used for political purposes. This gives the leadership of organizations political power that is essentially taken involuntarily from the peons in the organization.

Organizations don't get a vote, and have no citizenship, so I don't see the conflict with freedom of speech. You still have freedom to assemble, just not assemble other peoples money. What am I missing?

@Henry although it has obviously been like this for a while, it makes me sad that big decisions break down along ideological lines so much these days. Maybe it is true that there isn't that much difference between Justices so 5-4 decisions aren't really all that indicative of a split. I like to think this is the case.

So the de facto situation is now created where corporations and unions have more effective rights than individuals?

After all, it's pretty difficult for an individual to control the spending of $2401 in support of the candidate of his/her choice-- he would have to form a legal entity, and maybe try to find some other "owners" for it, right? Then the individual can take charge of his new legal entity and spend the funds as he sees fit. (Is it even legal to create an entity for the sole purpose of spending campaign money and getting around the $2400 limit?)

It is much easier for a corporation or union to do so-- the legal entity is already formed and its "stakeholders" (read: employees) are already found. The larger the corporation's spending effort is, the more it benefits from economy of scale. And the individual that controls the corporation controls the spending of that corporation, including the spending in support of the candidate of his/her choice.

AJ, Columbus was financed by the Spanish crown. The English used companies to finance their explorations. The Virginia Company, the Plymouth Company, etc. They were given royal charters, but the financing was largely from private investors.

The Court's ruling only applies to independent expenditures, not campaign contributions. So the ACLU, NRA, etc. can now use their own funds to advocate for or against candidates.

Before this, GE could use NBC and MSNBC to promote its own interests withouth limit (because of an exception for "media corporations" built into the law), while the Chamber of Commerce (which is a corporation), could not engage in counterspeech.

I haven't read it fully, but it seems that it also may lay the groundwork for First Amendment protections for bloggers equal to media companies, including prohibiting the government from drawing legal distinctions between "real" reporters and "citizen" reporters.

Of course the Framers’ personal affection or disaffection for corporations is relevant only insofar as it can be thought to be reflected in the understood meaning of the text they enacted—not, as the dissent suggests, as a freestanding substitute for that text. -- Scalia, J., concurring.

Forbidding the donation of money during a contested political campaign is a lot like forbidding weapons at a fight. The saying is that unless you are cheating, you are not really trying. These donations are NOT deductable. The Bundling of Friend's friends donations in many $2250 checks is a routinely broken restriction because 95% of those are paid for by the candidates Friends paying back the business owners or professional on an invoice padded with that much plus the 33% add on for the income tax on it. So the net effect here is less corruption.

What the Congress really needs to do is to correct the accidental mistake of a hundred fifty years or so ago that allowed corporations to be treated as "citizens".

There's no such thing. Corporations are treated as independent legal entities under the law because that is in fact what they are. They are not equivalent to humans, or recognized as "citizens" or any other mythical nonsense. I wish this idiotic talking point would die already.

Please keep in mind that this case was not about contributions to politicians or political campaigns. It was about whether corporations (other than media corporations) could be prohibited from spending their own money to speak on behalf of, or against a candidate.

The word "corporation" may be throwing some people off, but as the court wrote, the ruling really doesn't affect large powerful corporations one way or the other, because they always have the power to influence legislator through lobbying or private meetings. What this does is empower smaller companies and individuals to band together to increase their ability to get their own messages out to the voters.

Does the corporation you work for make all of its decisions by polling the employees?

Would you still take your position if the corporation you worked for was the Sierra Club?

Don't let the word "corporation" lead to think that his is about big business (or unions), it's not. Those entities are big enough and sophisticated enough to work around the laws. It is smaller companies and citizen groups, who can't afford FEC lawyers or compliance costs, who were shut out by the law at issue.

rcocean, is speech free if the government is allowed to determine who you can speak to? You may not like the intermingling of money and speech, but in the end, even in the days of the founders, one could speak to a larger audience only with a certain amount of money. Thomas Paine would have been hindered greatly if he could only express his common sense orally. Print, air, and web advertising all cost money. Why should people be restricted in what they want to say or to whom they can say it?

Corporate executives and employees counsel Members of Congress and Presidential administrations on many issues, as a matter of routine and often in private. ... lobbying and corporate communications with elected officials occur on a regular basis. When that phenonomenon is coupled with section 441b, the result is that smaller or nonprofit corporations cannot raise a voice to object when other corporations, including those with vast wealth, are cooperating with the Government. That cooperation may sometimes be voluntary, or it may be at the demand of a Government officialwho uses his or her authority, influence and power to threaten corporations to support the Government's policies. .... References to massive corporate treasuries should not mask the real operation of this law.

"Does the corporation you work for make all of its decisions by polling the employees?"

Of course not, but they also don't get to decide how I vote, and a political donation is more similar to a vote than a purchase of material or services.

"Would you still take your position if the corporation you worked for was the Sierra Club?"

Absolutely. I don't see the difference. If I'm the janitor for the Sierra Club, that does not mean I support their political agenda.

But my main point is that corporations should not get free speech rights. Individuals do. Otherwise that right is diluted and unnecessarily so. Otherwise, why can't I donate in my dog's name or my house's.

Does the NYT have a free speech right? It is a corporation. Your local paper is too, most likely. As are all broadcasting companies and cable channels. As are book and magazine publishers. None of these have free speech rights? Don't be lazy, think through what you are saying.

Yes, some people even think that joint-stock companies are the same as corporations.

Hint: the concepts of "limited liability" and a "legal personality" separate from the stockholders did not emerge till the middle of the Nineteenth Century.

Yeah, and printing presses used to actually squeeze ink onto one piece of paper at a time instead of using laser printing or ink jets or conveyors or electricity. Yet, they still have freedom of the conveyored electric laserized press too.

A corporation is nothing but a collection of individuals who have legally agreed to make common cause, typically profit but possibly anything else. You might as well argue that conservation is about protecting trees, not forests.

If the corporation I work for wants to support a candidate, I suggest they hand out that money to all the employees and then ask them to donate it to the cause. Now let's vote on it.

Why? You are not a member of that corporation. You have no obligation to act in their interest beyond what you agree to do for pay, and likewise they have none to act in yours beyond what they agree to provide for your services. It's far better for everyone to keep things separate this way.

a political donation is more similar to a vote than a purchase of material or services.

Again, we're talking about independent expenditures, not donations to candidates' campaigns. Would you be okay with submitting your decision to volunteer for a campaign to everyone you work with? That is what you are demanding.

Thee playing field is still far from level. These corporations will spend real earned and taxed money on partisan ads. The ABC, NBC, CNN and CBS corporations will still have the free use of partisan ads on their own media outlet 24/7 and hide it as a "news show". That was the trade off in McCain/Feingold in exchange for a favorable McCain narative up to 2008. The Congress and the Supremes gave the media a hammer to use uncontested, and surprise, surprise, they quickly morphed into organs of the DemonRat Party. Can that toothpaste now go back into the tube???

What I like about this decision, among many other things, is that hopefully this will end the reign of super rich people being the only ones that can really spend the amount of money (legally) to be competitive.

I'm sick and tired of politics being largely restricted to the independently wealthy.

wv: wayin, as in now there's another wayin to politics than being born a Rockefeller or Kennedy.

This was a long time coming. The road that SCOTUS started down with Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire of segregating certain types of speech and affording them lesser status is reaching an end. There is no other possible just outcome. The government cannot be in the business of deciding what sort of speech is permitted. That is the heart of the First Amendment.

The solution to our corrupted election process is not in further laws limiting who can say what or when. If you really want to see change, citizen funded elections are certainly worth a try.

So what is the difference between my corporation donating money and my family donating, or my house. The issue for me is that the Chairman of the board gets to donate twice. Once personal and once as a corp.

bagoh20, this isn't about donations. It's about corporations being able to endorse candidates or speak out on issues. Previously, these groups could not tell their side of the story if it would be seen as pushing one candidate over another.

The issue for me is that the Chairman of the board gets to donate twice.

And again, the number of donations is irrelevant, because we are talking about independent expenditures, not campaign contributions. There is no limit to what you, as an individual, can spend indpendently.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood the issue. I should be more careful and read it first.

Incidentally, I am a corporate officer and on the board of directors of a mutlimilliion dollar corp. We do not make political donations for this very reason. We don't believe it to be right to use money that could be used for employee salaries to support causes they may not support. We're capitalists, but sensitive to the imbalance of the power in an organization and do not take advantage of that in the political sphere unless absolutely necessary to the survival of the company.

hopefully this will end the reign of super rich people being the only ones that can really spend the amount of money (legally) to be competitive.

I'm sick and tired of politics being largely restricted to the independently wealthy.

Yes. So many liberal policies end up that way.

Universal Healthcare leads to only the super-rich being able to afford fast, high-quality healthcare. The lack of voucher programs make private schools unaffordable for middle-class families. The invention of Carbon Credits to cater to the owners of private jets, limos & mansions... The list goes on and on.

It's not donations - its spending on advertisements. The Chairman who can personally afford a prime time ad, or ad in the newspaper are few and far between. Currently, there is no limit on what you, as an individual, can spend, so there is no need to spend "in the name of your house" if you have the resources. (Presumably, with regard to spending by corporations, the Chairman, the rest of the Board, and the executives will make their decisions consistent with their fiduciary duties to the corporation, but that is a different question.)

The average person, or small business owner, has no ability to finance such ads. From the opinon: 96% of the 3 million businesses that belong to the U.S. Chamber of Congress have fewer than 100 employees... More than 75% of corporations whose income is taxed under federal law ... have less than $1 million in receipts each year. Individuals and smaller companies have to pool resources with others, and they often do that in corporate form.

The decision removes an obtacle to individuals and smaller businesses. The challenged law, (surprise, surprise) tilted the playing field in favor of larger, more entrenched interests.

bago, it's not your fault you were confused. The media is spinning this story recklessly. Check the Chicago Tribune headline, "Court ends limits on corporate political donations". Only when you get into the article, you see, "Corporations, and presumably unions, cannot give money directly to the campaigns of federal candidates. These "contribution" restrictions were not challenged in the case decided today."

The lack of voucher programs make private schools unaffordable for middle-class families.

Yeah, what is the deal with no vouchers?! Where does the government get off forcibly confiscating people's money for schooling, and then assigning them to the schools of the government's choosing? That's a pretty outrageous abridgment of freedom.

Where does the government get off forcibly confiscating people's money for schooling, and then assigning them to the schools of the government's choosing?

Not only that, but said schools are largely crappy.

Not only THAT, but the crappiest of said schools are the ones poor kids have to go to. It all works out so that, within the much-vaunted, supposedly equalizing public school system, those in the wealthiest areas receive the best education.

Insidious!

We moved to Ohio precisely because it would have been too expensive to send our kids to any one of the few private schools in Knoxville. And the public schools there were no good except in the wealthiest part of town, where we didn't want to live anyway.

An unjust system propping up something that badly needs to be demolished. Won't happen in our lifetimes, I imagine.

We do not make political donations for this very reason. We don't believe it to be right to use money that could be used for . . .

You also have a fiduciary duty to spend the money per the purpose the corporation has been created for. There is some leeway nowadays on that duty, but that's still the trend.

You don't say what your business is, and it's moot, but let's say your business is to make asphalt roofing shingles and Politician Smith wants to make a law outlawing the manufacture of any item made from asphalt. You'd be out of business.

Now you would have a fiduciary duty to oppose this legislation or the corporation would be put out of business. Now you can run ads telling your side of the story and explaining the virtues of asphalt shingles. Before this ruling, you would be extremely limited in how you could fight the legislation and you would in fact be easily susceptible to political blackmail to do other things to prevent your corporation's demise.

This now dead law was just a vehicle for politicians to control corporations.

"You also have a fiduciary duty to spend the money per the purpose the corporation has been created for"

We're a private company and the entire ownership is on the board so there is conflict.

Our corp. exists to support both owners and employees as much as possible. Casually stepping on our employee's political sensibilities is not considered smart business for us. And would be irresponsible.

Not that we would not do as your example suggests, just that we need really good reason to piss off valuable employees.

The idea that corporations should have the same rights as human beings is absurd. Corporations are not human beings, more like machines.

How is it so obviously "absurd?" Corporations are simply legal proxies for collectives of individuals. If you think individuals should have rights, then why would those rights automatically disappear when they act collectively?

Should the government have the power to search and seize the office of the New York Times without a warrant? Why not, if the idea of the NYT having Fourth Amendment rights is so "absurd?"

Yes AL, that long established law was Austin, a case from 1989, which was in the last millenium! That's 1000 years!!!!!! How could they overturn such a longstanding case, which itself completely departed from prior case law? It's outrageous.

The ban on corporate contributions goes back 100 years. Teddy Roosevelt was a huge champion. It's not like the Austin decision began the ban.

Corporations are not citizens (and neither are labor unions). They are often far more powerful than individual citizens. They flaunt their non-citizen status when they shut down US factories and moving them offshore. No loyalty to the USA from them.

The individuals in these "collective" organizations retain their rights when the enterprise is denied the rights of citizenship.

So if con's want to extend citizen rights to non-citizens like corporations and labor unions, will you also extend these rights to other non-citizens, like immigrants?

Liberal wrote: The idea that corporations should have the same rights as human beings is absurd. Corporations are not human beings, more like machines.

and

So if con's want to extend citizen rights to non-citizens like corporations and labor unions, will you also extend these rights to other non-citizens, like immigrants? .

Corporations have long had the recognition as persons in almost all of our legal system. This is not new.

I don't recall someone having to be a citizen to have free speech rights in this country. How is that germane? We're not talking of contributions to politicians, we're talking about being free to express an opinion. George Soros and Idi Amin both have the right to speak freely in this country, as do you.

Now we are recognizing that people without millions of dollars to spare can collect their money and spend it the way they choose to spend it. Freedom of speech is no longer confined to the rich. I'd think that someone calling themself a "liberal" would be all for that.

Oh, I forget. "Liberal" is just a mask for "marxist." And we know that Uncle Joe would never want to let people speak freely, either as individuals or as a community or corporation.

The [First] Amendment is written in terms of "speech," not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals--and the dissent offers no evidence about the original meaning of the text to support any such exclusion. We are therefore simply left with the question whether the speech at issue in this case is "speech" covered by the First Amendment. No one says otherwise.

--

So, the court is holding that, whether the speaker is a private citizen, corporation, or foreign national, speech is still speech, and speech is free.

"There's no such thing. Corporations are treated as independent legal entities under the law because that is in fact what they are. They are not equivalent to humans, or recognized as "citizens" or any other mythical nonsense. I wish this idiotic talking point would die already."

Funny - we hear the phrase "corporate citizen" all the time.

From the founding of this nation until the late 1800's there were rather sever limitations on the formation and function of corporations. It wasn't until the SCOTUS in the 'Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad' case over a hundred years ago that corporations started to be given legal standing as "persons".

The first amendment provides the right of free speech to people - not corporations. It is a bastardization of that principle more than a hundred years after the founding of this nation that corporations came to be regarded as "persons".

So we give corporations the rights of a citizen yet they are shielded from many of the responsibilities and obligations that a real citizen has. Can we throw a bad "corporate citizen" in jail?

So now it appears that corporations can spend a boatload of money to further influence our already too heavily corporate-influenced lawmaking processes.

Yet real citizens are still prevented from contributing as much money as they want to a candidate.

Just as there are good reasons to set individual campaign contribution limits for "real" citizens I think there are legitimate reasons to also limit corporate "citizens" rights.

Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps this is a great decision.

I wonder though how certain factions will react when Microsoft, Google, and others start throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns with a liberal social slant - will they still welcome unlimited corporate spending?

You can write Animal Farm for this century or be the next great Jonathan Swift, but unless you can publish and distribute your books without involving a publishing company or corporation the government is free to censor your work.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Skyler,

Newspapers, also known as "the press" are specifically mentioned in the first amendment.

Newspapers don't have to be a corporation though I would guess that these days the vast majority are.

Had the founding fathers meant for entities other than individuals or the press to be given first amendment protections they would likely have explicitly included them yet I see no mention of corporations in the amendment.

The amendment clearly gives individual citizens and organizations fulfilling the role of "the press" the right to speak their mind. A CEO, acting as an individual, is free to speak his mind on whatever topic he wants (oh wait...there are some rules that prohibit some corporate officers from making certain kinds of business/financial statements so I guess free speech is not absolute).

Even with our first amendment we do not really allow everyone to say whatever crazy crap they want - there are limits such as libel and slander laws.

It's amusing to see so many on the right today trumpeting their belief that this decision is a victory for free speech. Yet so many of those same folks don't really believe in free speech when it comes to symbolic forms of protest in the form of flag burning.

My bottom line is that I detest the power and influence that corporations have in the legislative process and this decision just adds to that power.

If you welcome and desire more corporate influence in government well I guess today is a day for you to celebrate.

As I said earlier, when some of the richest corporations such as Microsoft or Google or Apple, start dropping boatloads of cash to support/sway the playing field on some left leaning issues will the wingnuts still believe that this type of speech is a good thing?

Most would agree that The Nantucket Mirror and Inquirer is the Press. They print a newspaper regularly and it is in a traditional form.

But is Ann Althouse part of The Press? Non-traditional media, but certainly a regular publisher.

What about Slate? It's on line and is a corporation. How is that different from Professor Althouse?

What about terrorist organizations such as Green Peace? They certainly go beyond their hobby of terrorizing peaceful ships and they publish political tracts. Surely this is not too dissimilar from Thomas Payne's pamphlets in mechanism if not in patriotism. Would not that pamphleteering be part of The Press?

So why is Exxon Corporation, or even your local Brewery not allowed to call itself The Press? Why should their political speech be suppressed when Green Peace's is not?

Had the founding fathers meant for entities other than individuals or the press to be given first amendment protections they would likely have explicitly included them yet I see no mention of corporations in the amendment.

What is a corporation? It is a legal collective...of people. A corporation cannot exist without people. If people have rights when they act individually, why oughtn't they have those rights when acting collectively?

The Amendment certainly doesn't explicitly except corporations, as you seem to imply. I see a prohibition on the abridgment of "speech," generally, without any specific limitation as to its source. And I think that our sense of right and wrong would not countenance a legal system that takes away the rights of people simply because they are acting collectively.

For example - the Fourth Amendment doesn't mention the press. Would you be okay with the government conducting warrantless searches and seizures of the offices of the New York Times? The Fifth Amendment doesn't mention the press. Should the government be able to simply appropriate any corporate property without any compensation whatsoever? Are you meaning to suggest that you would find no constitutional problem with the government just arbitrarily liquidating corporations it disfavors with no process whatsoever? These are the logical consequences of your argument.

I submit most people don't think so. Thus most people agree that corporations should have at least some of the same rights as people, and furthermore that this is a reasonable reading of the Constitution, which does not, generally speaking, discriminate between individual and collective enterprise.

Newspapers, also known as "the press" are specifically mentioned in the first amendment.

OH FOR JEFFERSON'S SAKE.

This is one of the most egregious misreadings of the Constitution there is, and no less egregious for being widespread. Particularly among journalists, to their shame.

Freedom of the press is the freedom to use a printing press. The freedom to publish, which goes with the freedom to speak. You do not need to be an employee of a media corporation to enjoy freedom of the press. You have it, I have it, everyone has it. The right of all to publish their thoughts, without interference by Congress, is recognized in the First Amendment. The claim that this right is restricted to a special class of persons called "journalists", or a special class of corporations called "newspapers" or "media", is an infamous falsehood and any American who promulgates it ought to be forced to write out the Declaration of Independence, by hand, a hundred times.

And then apologize to each and every one of his or her fellow citizens. Gerry, I sure hope you're not an American. Really, this is right on a level with claiming that freedom of speech applies only to professional public speakers. Except that public speakers aren't self-aggrandizing enough to believe and to teach that the Constitution mentions their profession specially.